Dunno if it's any better.

The competition then switches from spending direct financial resources to the university to spending financial resources to out compete other students vying for the same university. In China there's usually 1 seat per 50 candidates for good university spots, and the only thing that matters is your ranking in the entrance exams. It's not exactly uncommon for high school students to be spending 14 to 19 hours a day 7 days a week for 3 to 4 years preparing academically to win a spot.

Trading one bad situation for another one really.

But on the other hand it would encourage other universities to build better programs. Who cares if it’s difficult to get into a good university. That’s already true without free tuition. Post-high school education already has marginal gains. Networking is a completely different story but one that isn’t affected by the cost of tuition.

I think in part because on the "buyer" side, there's often a problem of how to sort through 100 resumes for a position. Given that in any given pile of resumes, probably 70% are unqualified, filtering for "degree" is an easy way (though naturally not great, though how not great it is is hard to measure, which of course means we do it) to cut the work required in half or more.

Free education does not mean "no degrees", it means "funded from taxes/ by goverment".

That's still not "free." Taxpayers are footing the bill, with the government taking its cut.

Yeah I don't get why this isn't talked about more. It feels like one of those things in the 80s/90s during the free market fad where people decided that private loans would fix education and it ended up just disastrous.

Many states do operate tuition-free programs for residents at their public colleges. But students with good grades often prefer to take a large amount of debt rather than go to the local state school, and it's not clear how you would go about changing that.

This. If you want education to be cheaper or free, you'll need to give up some amount of choice.

Most states in the US already have public university systems, but that isn't where most of the debt comes from.

Everyone wants to go to Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, etc.

how does that help?

You don't have "an industry" that hikes prices, and there is a central authority without ulterior motive that has an influence over what is funded. Not to mention that you don't put young people into debt from get go.

My understanding of a free education is one that is 100% paid for by the government, since someone still has to pay the professor's salary. In that case, you still have an issue of an industry that can demand increased prices (from the government, of course) if university enrollment suddenly increases (and I think it would if students didnt have to pay tuition). So I think you still have to figure out how to handle the market forces, but you're right that shifting the burden from the students to the government lets people start off their lives with less debt, which is a benefit of its own.

Elementary and High Schools already solved all of this.

No need to over complicate things.

It may be better to start with understanding why on earth the it’s so expensive to get educated in the USA, while in other countries it’s much cheaper, even when unsubsidized

Any mention of reducing (or eliminating) profit in America is STRICTLY taboo. You’re just not allowed. Profit is the foundation of the American culture and society.